Professional Harassment!

After writing a Best Seller post 'How to get works done' (!!!), I'm here with another professional remix titled 'Professional Harassment'.

There are many kind of harassment that can be categorized under this head. But what I’m talking here is something different.

Often you come across a person in your team, where he/she just receives salary for coming to the office. Leave alone whether they work or not, they also don’t allow others to work peacefully. I have personally been in that position (of course in receiving end!!) and I still see such person in professional environment.

I get disgusted & frustrated sometimes to see fellow team members suffering and slogging just because of one person inefficiency and irresponsibility. They just behave like an Erumai Maadu, with no sense or feelings for others at all. They don’t care for other people slogging or suffering, let alone enjoy in how to evade works.

I wonder how they could be such thing in this world. One your conscience should hit you if you are avoiding work continuously. Or atleast, seeing your team suffering / slogging so much, you become little kind and share the work. But nope, these people don’t care for both.

I don’t know if they are doing it purposefully or they get into such shelves unconsciously. But whatever it is, the pain the rest of the team members endure is unexplainable.

What aggravates this injustice is when the very same person is regarded as a goody goody fellow by rest of the people in the company / environment. They think he/she is a such a kind good person and regard high of him / her. Often their escapisms such as coming late to office, leaving early, just avoiding works, take no interest in sharing the team load etc, gets unnoticed just because of their good communication / tackling people. Nonsense!!!

Luckily, I’m not in that circle but I’m seeing that plight daily. But one thing is for sure, hard work really pays. OP (escaping from work) really kills you at some point of time. But current situation may not look so, but it would one day for sure. If not in professional life, atleast somewhere in their personal life they would surely get a HIT.

This post is not out of my personal vengeance, but result of seeing people working really hard for their pay / conscience / responsibility inspite of having such numb member in their team.

Slow Down

Have you ever
watched kids
on a merry-go-round?

Or listened
to the rain
slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a
butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun
in the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day
on the fly?
When you ask How are you?
do you hear the reply?

When the day is done
do you lie in your bed
with the next hundred chores
running through your head?

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,
"We'll do it tomorrow"?
and in your haste,
not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch?
Let a good friendship die?
‘Cause you never had time
to call and say,"Hi"?

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast
to get somewhere
you miss half the fun
of getting there.

When you worry and hurry
throughout your day,
it is like an unopened gift
thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music
before the song is over.

(Above poem is said to be written by a small girl who is suffering from Cancer. I especially like the lines marked in bold above)

Have a Heart

I have been experiencing pain of varying degrees in my chest for some years. It disappears when I love, when I melt....

Osho Speaks: It is not physical; it is certainly concerned with relaxation, total melting, forgetting oneself completely. In those moments it disappears, so certainly it is not physical. You have to learn to give more love. This is not only your problem; in varying degrees it is the problem of everybody.

Everybody wants to be loved; that is a wrong beginning.

It starts because the child, the small child, cannot love, cannot say anything, cannot do anything, cannot give anything; he can only get. A small child’s experience of love is of getting: getting from the mother, getting from the father, getting from brothers, sisters, getting from guests, strangers — but always getting. So the first experience that settles deep in his unconscious is that he has to get love.But the trouble arises because everybody has been a child, and everybody has the same urge to get love; nobody is born in any other way. So all are asking, “Give us love,” and there is nobody to give because the other person was also brought up in the same way.One has to be alert and aware that just an incident of birth should not remain a constant prevailing state of your mind.

Rather than asking, “Give me love,” start giving love. Forget about getting, simply give — and I guarantee you, you will get much.

But you are not to think about getting. You are not even indirectly, by the side, to watch whether you are getting it or not. That much will be enough disturbance. You simply give, because to give love is so beautiful that getting love is not so great. This is one of the secrets.Giving love is the really beautiful experience, because then you are an emperor. Getting love is very small experience, and it is the experience of a beggar. Don’t be a beggar. At least as far as love is concerned, be an emperor, because it is an inexhaustible quality in you. You can go on giving as much as you like. Don’t be worried that it will be exhausted, that one day you will suddenly find, “My God! I don’t have any love to give anymore.”

Love is not a quantity; it is a quality, and a quality of a certain category that grows by giving and dies if you hold it. If you are miserly about it, it dies. So be really spendthrift. Don’t bother to whom — that is really the idea of a miserly mind: I will give love to certain persons with certain qualities. You don’t understand that you have so much...you are a raincloud.

The raincloud does not bother where it rains — on the rocks, in the gardens, in the ocean — it doesn’t matter. It wants to unburden itself. And that unburdening is a tremendous relief.So the first secret is: Don’t ask for it, and don’t wait, thinking that you will give if somebody asks you. Give it!Just give your love to anybody — a stranger. It is not a question that you have to give something very valuable, just a helping hand and that will be enough. In twenty-four hours, whatever you do should be done with love, and the pain in your heart will disappear. And because you will be so loving, people will love you. It is a natural law. You get what you give. In fact you get more than you give.Learn giving, and you will find so many people being loving towards you who had never looked at you, who had never bothered about you. Your problem is that you have a heart full of love but you have been a miser; that love has become a burden on the heart. Rather than making the heart blossom you have been hoarding it, so once in a while when you are in a moment of love you feel it disappearing. But why one moment? Why not every moment?

It is not even a question of a living being. You can touch this chair with a loving hand. The thing depends on you, not on the object.

Then you will find a great relaxation and a great disappearance of your self — which is a burden — and a melting into the whole.This is certainly a disease, in the literal meaning of the word: it is a dis-ease. It is not sickness, so no physician can help you. It is simply a tense state of your heart that just wants to give more and more. Perhaps you have more love than other people, perhaps you are more fortunate, and you are making out of your fortune a great misery for yourself. Share it, without bothering to whom you are giving.

Just give it, and you will find tremendous peace and silence. This will become your meditation.

One can come to meditation through many directions; perhaps this is going to be your direction.

How to get works done?

One important aspect in a professional life is how to get works done efficiently and effectively. While everyone is bound to do their work for which they are accountable / responsible, there is still a fine line between doing the work and enjoying the work.

From my professional life so far (I’m not an age old person to account my 25 years of experience but still hold a decent level of experience because of which I become eligible to write this post), I have noticed different reasons why a person really does a work.

Primarily the reason one does the work is because obviously he has to do it, otherwise he would be sent back home. However it is very important, how is that work is being carried out and how it’s being served. For e.g. If one orders a Dosa, he is bound to get a Dosa in a Hotel. But it depends, whether he is given a tasty sambar / chutney, Butter is added to Dosa for no extra cost, how the Dosa is being served, how the cleanliness is maintained etc.

In same way, as an individual if one wants to do a work, though he/she does it, the question remains whether they are doing it with their full potential and interest. Many a times, the answer is negative. But why?

Some people get the motivation & Interest to work if they know their work is going to be recognized and he/she is bound to get rewarded. If those are not there, the quality of work would be depreciated day by day, though he might be receiving all other benefits.

Some people get the motivation & Interest to work, if they have excellent team members. For them, Hike in pay or promotion is not their major motivational factors. They like to see how they are treated. Since primarily we all spend major hours in an official environment, most of our emotions /energy are also being spent there. In that case, if we get excellent team members, who is just not a mere team member, but also assumes an extra role as a friend, then the working culture would be completely different. All know their responsibility and they work towards it, but at the same time, it’s been done enthusiastically. They love to do works in a shared manner with more of discussions among themselves. They like to be heard. They don’t care much about other things, as long as their personal emotions are satisfied.

Some people regardless of any benefits either personal / official, they work according to their mind patterns, which is often very difficult to read. It fluctuates often and one has to really know their habit patterns, to get works done through them.

Some people think work as worship. They are bound by Do’s & don’ts in life. Even though they have personal emotions, they still like their work, because they take it very seriously. They are those sincere, goody-goody individuals, who spend their life & heart towards official’s works. They might feel bad, if their efforts are not recognized, but they would feel much bad, if something goes wrong in the office.

Personally I’ve faced all of them in above categories. May be as a boss, as a person in equal designation, as a team member, as a person reporting to me or just a member in same office. Personally I love to work along with my team members. Many a times, if I am accountable to do some work, I often share my working experience, pain & pleasures I got in that work with my team members. I feel they would be equally happy to know about my work, because some day or the other, they have to reach that stage as well. Also, my work today would become his/her work tomorrow. So it is always better, we gave them a necessary exposure at the start. Also, I feel bad to say to my team, “boss, these are your work area & scope and you be among that only”.

I also strongly feel we should necessarily understand our team members emotions if we want our professional works to be done effectively & efficiently. Often works are done through emotions, and if we don’t understand the personal level of emotions, we would never know why someone work quality is depreciated or poor. As an employee we might not have powers to give a hike / promotion to our fellow team members, but certainly we can always have one or two kind words, just showing them what they mean to us, just showing that little extra care etc.

Also many a times, in professional life, one faces situations, where he/she feels extremely lost or a sense of loneliness creeps in. These emotions are often not discussed at all. However it depends on our ability to identify those and try & help them to overcome it. Otherwise they would never get the trust & confidence on us.

For e.g. I remember a scene in a film, where group of friends go to a quality restaurant. The foods are being served and everybody starts eating with the help of the spoon & spokes that are provided along with the items supplied. Among the group, there is one new person who is from a Village and who had never used spoon in his life. Though he his accompanied with his elder brother, who is one among the group, the elder brother didn’t understand the plight & pain of this village based brother because, he is more lost in his own personal interest of enjoying the atmosphere and his friends.

However, one of the city based member in that group (who else than the film heroine) who just sits near that village based boy, suddenly drops her spoon and starts eating the food by hand. Seeing her, this fellow slowly starts feeling comfortable and also starts enjoying the food, which he didn’t touch for quite some time.

Here no words are spoken, but still the ability to understand the other fellow personal weakness and also trying to help him without making him feel embarrassed is the highlight points to note.

How many of us can do such things in professional life as well? Here the food can be replaced with the works and the moment we share with our team members in the name of meetings, discussions, official lunch, casual chats, casual outings etc.

Well if you want your professional work to be done in a better way, you can ponder on these points & come up with your own strategy; otherwise just let it be the way it is now currently.

My Experiment

hmm.. somehow i failed.. or the reader failed with the Experiment I did on my last story well... i take the blame.. i tried to cover too many things there..

Impatience of the individual, thinking too many things at one time. Creating a miserable situation himself, unable to prevent panic, getting tension unnecessarily

Not able to enjoy the current events (a jolly ride in auto) because of co-relating with other events (like bus comes after he gets on to the Auto)... still thinking about past things, for which he dont have control... then.. well.. let me stop here..

as i said, it's a Ven Story.. only the writer can understand... not because the readers are poor in understanding but the writer himself is poor in communicating any kinds of emotions verbally or through writing..

22A

A Ven Story (what is Ven Story?)

Oh man, time is already 12.30 pm still no sign of 22A bus..

This scorching sun makes my life hell

It’s been 45 minute since I’m standing on this bus stop; I could see all bus except mine..

I think I would be late today; Shit Man, shit! I would definitely get a two wheeler after this year’s appraisal, but hope they give me a decent hike

Oh god, my legs are paining, they don’t even keep a decent shelter or place to sit in these bus stops, these government guys are utterly useless

No other go, I’ve to take an auto, Sigh.. he will charge me almost Rs.80 to this nearby office, saying peak traffic as a justification..

Eh! Auto…

What.. it’s too much, I will give you Rs.75…

Ok ok, Rs.80

You guys are sick.. you know when to hike the prices, Rs.90 is too much…

Ok, 85 done, now hurry.. I’m already late…

Even though he charges more, Auto travel is far better compared to bus, but still Rs.85 compared to Rs.10 ticket in a bus is no way justified.. my fate 22A is no where to be seen.

Oh god!.. there is that 22A, should it come only after I get into the Auto!! All my Fate.. All my fate.. this world is so cruel to me.. Rs.85 gone waste today!!

The End

(readers can send their interpretation of this story and meaning (if any) out of it)

No Zen But Ven Stories

Many teachings from Zen-Buddhism are told in short and delightful stories. They are usually designed to develop the mind and to free it from distortions and so to connect with our spirit.

Some of them are really inspiring and enlightening. It is helpful to the mind to think about them and feel the deeper meaning. Even if it is not possible to grasp them fully, the beauty and simplicity of the message usually gets through to us one way or the other.

I am no expert to write Zen Stories. Nevertheless instead of ZEN I plan to present VEN stories. Only similarity between these two would be it's length. Yes it would be short. However the meaning behind the stories are left to the readers to grasp on their own. Somemay look more simple, some absurd but surely it does give inner meanings, atleast to me.

So Happy Reading!